Main menu

How Long Does a Custom Medical Cart Take to Design and Manufacture?

If you’ve been considering embarking on a custom medical cart design project, you’re probably trying to work out how long the project will take from start to finish. If you speak to a company who does this regularly like DeviceLab, they’ll tell you that quite often they have to work to deadlines in order to achieve FDA approval, or to be ready in time for a product launch. But what can a timeline tell you about the cart provider, and will it really hurt if you miss your deadline? Keep reading to find out more.

What Can You Learn from a Timeline?

When you start working with a medical cart provider to create a product, they will provide you with an estimated timeline of when they believe the product will be complete. Almost everyone who goes ahead with a design wants it completing ASAP. So, if one provider gives you a significantly lower turnaround time than others, you should ask them how this is possible. Maybe they have more staff available for the job, or maybe they aren’t as renowned. It pays to know before you begin your project.

You’ll Need to Be on Hand to Answer Questions

Okay, so you want to design a custom medical cart, but you can’t just expect to hire a company and let them take control over everything. Instead, you’ll need to be a regular voice in the designing and manufacturing processes to help guide the company along. You’ll need to provide specifications, estimate sales volumes, provide a target price, and give the company a list of features you want to include. As busy as you are, a developer can’t do a good job without you, and the more you are around to advise, the quicker your project will take.

Estimated Turnarounds

Every project is different, and you can’t see how long one design took and expect yours to be the same. However, as a guideline, these are some of the average turnarounds for each part of the design and manufacturing process:

Tooling for thermal formed components – 8 weeks

Machined components – 2 weeks

Special tooling and welding – 2 weeks

Casting molds – 8 weeks

Testing – 4 weeks

Does it Really Matter if You Miss Your Deadline?

With most projects taking around 3 months to complete, does it really matter if your project isn’t completed by a set date? Think about it this way: Deadlines are useful. They enable you to have a general guide of when you can expect each phase of the design and manufacturing process to take. And they encourage you to stay motivated. However, if you don’t need to have your product ready for a specific date for a launch, or you don’t need it to go for FDA testing before a certain date, having a specific deadline probably isn’t that important. If missing a deadline means ending up with a better medical cart surely that’s a good thing?

Whatever you decide to do, take the time to speak to a medical cart design company in detail so that you have a good idea of what to expect.